Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 18 of 156

bit
the
cross
ROADS
Brownsboro Road
and Story Avenue
T
he meeting of the two streets listed above — which in tandem
make up the southwest terminus of U.S. 42, whose other end
lies in Cleveland — is an odd juncture indeed, mostly because of the
severity of that left-hand turn for commuters speeding to work downtown. Fact is, there used to be a well-used hard right, too, that took
drivers from Story onto Litterle Road (aka Cut-Of Road) and into a
long-gone, French-favored neighborhood informally called Te Point.
According to my Coleman's 1949 map of Louisville, the road ran
along the western bank of the Beargrass Creek Cut-Of channel and
led to a grid of streets with such names as Clinton, Lloyd, Irvine,
Fulton, Marion and Lombard on what is now acres of no-man's-land
surrounding I-71, including the city's vehicle impoundment lot. Before the Cut-Of was dug in 1854, dividing the Point in two, the creek
swung west and made a beeline for the downtown. Until the 1937,
1945 and smaller subsequent foods carried away or otherwise ruined
most of the Point's homes, streets such as Barbour, Pope, Richmond
and Shiloh — bustling with shops, groceries, churches and schools —
met up with Mellwood Avenue.
It's next to impossible to see evidence of the old Butchertown-Point
neighborhood connection at the Brownsboro-Story corner. Behind the
pretty little shotgun houses that dress up the short piece of Story east
of Brownsboro, a food berm obstructs your view. Te giant Beargrass
Creek Pumping Station hides the engineered duodenal change in the
course of the creek. But right at Story's eastern end you can take the
Butchertown Greenway trail over a rise as it follows the path of Litterle Road. Soon you'll walk through the giant pillars supporting the
expressway and fnd yourself at Truston Park along River Road.
— Jack Welch
www.502restaurantweek.com
16 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 8.13